MUSIC REVIEW : A Poignant Tribute to Bernstein

Just about every symphony orchestra in America, and beyond, must be thinking about Leonard Bernstein this week. The man left his mark.

Hasty tributes to the late conductor-composer-pianist-educator-writer-philosopher-showman are virtually imperative at current concerts from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Many music directors have added the elegiac Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony to their scheduled agendas, simultaneously honoring Bernstein himself and his crusading efforts on behalf of the Austrian master he so desperately wanted to emulate.

Bernstein would, no doubt, have approved. He might have been even happier, however, with memorials involving music of his own. He always chafed at the suggestion that he was, even by temporal default, a conductor first and a composer second.

At the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Thursday, Andre Previn opened the Los Angeles Philharmonic program with a little Bernstein. In place of Berlioz’s overture to “Beatrice et Benedict,” Previn interpolated “A Simple Song” from Bernstein’s “Mass.” It turned out to be an unhappily revealing choice.

The “Simple Song” is a slushy song, a trivial song. Affecting in its unabashedly sentimental way, it is most interesting because of a few unexpected harmonic quirks. It is instantly hummable yet eminently forgettable. As orchestrated by Irwin Kostal, it sounds like a good excuse for lyric calm between raucous storms at the Boston Pops.

Inadvertently, this tribute suggested that Bernstein’s most notable gift to posterity may have been re -creative rather than creative. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is only a question of priority and pretense.

The centerpiece of the program, Bloch’s Schelomo, had been planned all along as a vehicle for Yo-Yo Ma. Under the mournful circumstances, the conductor and cellist dedicated their performance to Bernstein.

It was a generally splendid performance, at once taut yet intense, heroic yet melancholic. Unlike some celebrated predecessors, Ma does not bathe the rhetoric in pulsating tone and gushing passion. His favors lean outlines and a somewhat muted dynamic scheme.

If anything, his introspection ennobled the rhapsodic drama. His virtuosity remains its own reward, and ours.

Previn provided a sympathetic symphonic framework. The accompaniment proved more remarkable for sensitivity, however, than for precision.

The mood lightened drastically, and agreeably, after intermission with a suite fusing snippets of Shakespeare with the score Mendelssohn composed for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Here, Previn made the orchestra play with ample charm and propulsive energy, if not with the gossamer delicacy one ideally associates with music of elfin enchantment.

He supported his incidental singers thoughtfully. He also enjoyed a fine rapport with Claire Bloom, the stellar Shakespearean narrator.

Bloom brought subtle definition to various character identities and benefited from Previn’s sense of dramatic timing. Although over-amplified, she elegantly understated the poetry and, with rhythmic inflection and cantilena stress, even hinted at a basic musical subtext.

Karen Beardsley, Marzelline in the recent Music Center “Fidelio,” sang the solos of the soprano fairy with exquisite point and a touch of rapture. Her efforts were sweetly seconded by the mezzo-soprano, Stephanie Vlahos. The Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, trained by Rebecca Thompson, piped its cheery refrains cheerily.